Techno-Economical and Ecological Potential of Electric Scooters: A Life Cycle Analysis

Abstract

In Germany, mobility is currently in a state of flux. Since June 2019, electric kick scooters (e-scooters) have been permitted on the roads, and this market is booming. This study employs a user survey to generate new data, supplemented by expert interviews to determine whether such e-scooters are a climate-friendly means of transport. The environmental impacts are quantified using a life cycle assessment. This results in a very accurate picture of e-scooters in Germany. The global warming potential of an e-scooter calculated in this study is 165 g CO2-eq./km, mostly due to material and production (that together account for 73% of the impact). By switching to e-scooters where the battery is swapped, the global warming potential can be reduced by 12%. The lowest value of 46 g CO2-eq./km is reached if all possibilities are exploited and the life span of e-scooters is increased to 15 months. Comparing these emissions with those of the replaced modal split, e-scooters are at best 8% above the modal split value of 39 g CO2-eq./km.

Conceptualising Micromobility: The Multi-Dimensional and Socio-Technical Perspective

“…The capacity of typical e-bike batteries range from 250 Wh (providing between 25 and 50 km in range) to 1,000 Wh, weighting 1.5-5 kg. E-scooter batteries have a capacity of about 500 Wh and weigh 4-5 kg (Kazmaier et al, 2020). Average e-cargo bikes have a battery capacity of around 400-500Wh, providing a range of up to 80 km (Narayanan & Antoniou, 2021), and their batteries are slightly heavier that e-bikes' batteries.…”

A Literature Review of Emerging Research Needs for Micromobility—Integration through a Life Cycle Thinking Approach

“…In the specific case of Hollingsworth et al [49], they estimate a GHG emissions value of 202 gCO 2eq /passenger-mile for e-scooters, owing primarily to materials selection, manufacturing processes, and operational services. Likewise, in Germany, e-scooters have a global warming potential estimated at 165 gCO 2eq /km [53]. Furthermore, the Ghisallo tricycle, a novel micromobility vehicle, was estimated to have lifetime indicators of 0.36 MJ/v-km and 15.29 gCO 2eq /v-km.…”

“…Even if the three abovementioned suggestions have yet to be considered for achieving the full potential of LCT approaches, all the authors from the latest five cited works ( [49,[53][54][55][56]) advise strategies to reduce environmental impacts. That type of sensitivity analysis looks into the effects of changing the input assumptions for the life cycle pillars.…”

“…From the LCT perspective, studies to perform can be life cycle assessment (LCA), life cycle costing (LCC), social LCA, and life cycle sustainability assessment (LSCA) [52]. Integrated programs that combine LCA tools with other methodologies have the potential to assist in the evaluation of the urban complexity, particularly larger-scale systems such as mobility-related ones [50][51][52]; • Current analysis of environmental indicators results from LCA must include skepticism, while all the proposals available in a sensitivity analysis of references [49,[53][54][55][56][57][58][59] result in emerging research opportunities to explore and re-evaluate, such as, for instance:…”

“…Considering the effects of replacing steel and aluminum with other materials such as bamboo [55,56]; Recycling aluminum using renewable energy to power the process [57,59]; Replacing trips performed by vans with trips performed by cargo bikes to locally replace the batteries of electrical PMDs [57,58]; E-scooter providers and public transport should work on a joint and multimodal concept [53]; Quantifying more precisely the lifetime and PMD kilometers traveled to increase the accuracy of the LCA [53];…”